1.
Effective Communication
Effective communication skills are fundamental to success in many aspects of life. Many jobs require strong communication skills and socially people with improved communication skills usually enjoy better interpersonal relationships with friends and family.
Effective communication is a key interpersonal skill and by learning how we can improve our communication has many benefits.
Thinking
You may not recognize thinking as being a communication skill, but having a clear idea of symbolic internal reality you want to convey to another person or group of people is the beginning of effective communication. If you don’t have the idea straight in your own mind, don’t be surprised if others get a different idea from your communication than what you thought you intended to say.
Listening
Effective listening allows you to enter the reality of the other person and understand what their internal symbolic reality is. Only when you do this are you able to communicate effectively by understanding what they are sharing with you, even if it is very different from your personal perspective.You can’t truly communicate with someone else of you don’t understand their internal reality.
Speaking
The third communication skill that leads to effective communication is your selection of words and the voice tones that you use when you speak them. While this may the part that most people concentrate on, research has revealed that nonverbal communication has more impact than the actual words that you use. In fact, the nonverbal portion of the communication can actually change the meaning of the words that you say.
Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication is the communication skill that usually receives little thought because it happens automatically. We actually learn to communicate non verbally at a very young age ( a baby crying) and are able to communicate quite effectively using only nonverbal communication.Here is more detailed information about nonverbal communication.
2.
Interpersonal Skills
Leadership
They can be applied to any situation where you are required to take the lead, professionally, socially and at home in family settings. Ideally, leaders become leaders because they have credibility,As well as requiring strong Communication Skills and Personal Skills, leadership uses the Background skills of mentoring, decision making, delegation and motivating others.
Teamwork
Involves working with others in a group towards a common goal. This requires cooperating with others, being responsive to others' ideas, taking a collaborative approach to learning, and taking a responsibility for developing and achieving group goals. Teamwork uses the Background skills of collaboration, mentoring, decision making and delegation.
Networking
The ability to actively seek, identify and create effective contacts with others, and to maintain those contacts for mutual benefit. In addition to strong Communication Skills and Personal Skills, Networking uses the Background skills of network building and motivating others.
3. Time Management
The major themes arising from the literature on time management include the following:
- Creating an environment conducive to effectiveness
- Setting of priorities
- Carrying out activity around those priorities
- The related process of reduction of time spent on non-priorities
- Incentives to modify behavior to ensure compliance with time-related deadlines.
Time management has been considered to be a subset of different concepts such as:
- Project management. Time Management can be considered to be a project management subset and is more commonly known as project planning and project scheduling. Time Management has also been identified as one of the core functions identified in project management.[1]
- Attention management: Attention Management relates to the management of cognitive resources, and in particular the time that humans allocate their mind (and organize the minds of their employees) to conduct some activities.
Time Management Mistake
Mistake #1. Failing to Keep a To-Do List
The trick with using To-Do Lists effectively lies in prioritizing the tasks on your list. Many people use an A – F coding system (A for high priority items, F for very low priorities). Alternatively, you can simplify this by using A through D, or by using numbers.
If you have large projects on your list, then, unless you're careful, the entries for these can be vague and ineffective. For instance, you may have written down "Start on budget proposal." But what does this entail? The lack of specifics here might cause you to procrastinate, or miss key steps. So make sure that you break large tasks or projects down into specific, actionable steps – then you won't overlook something important.
Mistake #2. Not Setting Personal Goals
Personal goal setting is essential to managing your time well, because goals give you a destination and vision to work toward. When you know where you want to go, you can manage your priorities, time, and resources to get there. Goals also help you decide what's worth spending your time on, and what's just a distraction.
Mistake #3. Failing to Manage Distractions
Whether they come from emails, IM chats, colleagues in a crisis, or phone calls from clients, distractions prevent us from achieving flow , which is the satisfying and seemingly effortless work that we do when we're 100 percent engaged in a task.
If you want to gain control of your day and do your best work, it's vital to know how to minimize distractions and manage interruptions effectively. For instance, turn off your IM chat when you need to focus, and let people know if they're distracting you too often. You should also learn how to improve your concentration , even when you're faced with distractions.
Mistake #4. Not Taking Breaks
It's nice to think that you can work for 8-10 hours straight, especially when you're working to a deadline. But it's impossible for anyone to focus and produce really high-quality work without giving their brains some time to rest and recharge.
So, don't dismiss breaks as "wasting time." They provide valuable down-time, which will enable you to think creatively and work effectively.
If it's hard for you to stop working, then schedule breaks for yourself, or set an alarm as a reminder. Go for a quick walk, grab a cup of coffee, or just sit and meditate at your desk. Try to take a five minute break every hour or two. And make sure that you give yourself ample time for lunch – you won't produce top quality work if you're hungry.
Mistake #5. Ineffectively Scheduling Tasks
Are you a morning person? Or do you find your energy picking up once the sun begins to set in the evening? All of us have different rhythms, that is, different times of day when we feel most productive and energetic.
You can make best use of your time by scheduling high-value work during your peak time, and low-energy work (like returning phone calls and checking email), during your "down" time. Our article, Is This a Morning Task? will teach you how to do this.
4. Problem Solving
Problem solving is a multiple step process where the problem solver must find relationships between past experience and the current problem and then apply a solution. In order to solve problems, learners have to want to do so, and they need to believe they can. Motivation and attitude are important aspects of solving problems such as effort, confidence, anxiety, persistence, and knowledge about one's self.
Knowledge of context, facts, concepts, and principles in a specific domain, is one of the most important features in someone's ability to problem solve. The biggest differences between an expert and a novice problem solver is their depth of knowledge, ability to understand the problem, and their confidence in their abilities. A person can be an expert problem solver in one area but a novice in another.
